Dear Kenyas LGBTI,

RE: COMMUNITY SCREENING AT THE GALCK CENTRE - ENVISIONING GLOBAL LGBT HUMAN RIGHTS

The Gay and Lesbian Coalition of Kenya invites you for a community forum and video screening on the 28th of November 2012 from 3-7pm at the GALCK resource centre. GALCK, is a partner in Envisioning Global LGBT Human Rights which is documenting and researching human rights violations affecting LGBTI people as well as organizing histories of LGBTI persons in Africa, the Caribbean, and India.

For this special event, we will be joined by Envisioning partners, Lesbians, Gays, Bisexuals Botswana: LeGaBiBo and Sexual Minorities Uganda: SMUG, who will also share their work to date. We shall be shown excerpts of work in progress from video interviews done by GALCK, SMUG and LEGABIBO during the past few months.
We hope to have your presence to interact and discuss the work in progress on the human rights violations for LGBTI persons and our organizational initiatives and how they bring us close to a day when discrimination is not a word we voice daily.

Please join us and share the stories of LGBTI individuals as they honor us with an opportunity to hear of their lives. We invite you to contribute your perspectives on the work, to map out the path forward for this research in Kenya.

Best Regards

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: GALCK STANDS IN SOLIDARITY WITH UGANDAN LGBTI COMMUNITY

In solidarity with our LGBTI comrades and social justice activists and organisations in Uganda, the Gay & Lesbian Coalition of Kenya vehemently protests the Anti-Homosexuality Bill, currently under consideration by the Ugandan Parliament.

As most of you know, the ‘Anti-Homosexuality Bill’ was been re-tabled before the Ugandan Parliament in February 2012. The current Speaker of Parliament has recently promised to “pass this bill as a Christmas gift to Uganda”.

This Bill's provisions are draconian. Among them, the Bill states that:

“Any person alleged to be homosexual would be at risk of life imprisonment or in some circumstances the death penalty”

“Any parent who does not denounce their lesbian daughter or gay son to the authorities would face fines of $2,650 or three years in prison”

“Any teacher who does not report a lesbian or gay pupil to the authorities within 24 hours would face the same penalties”

“And any landlord or landlady who happens to give housing to a suspected homosexual would risk 7 years of imprisonment”

Dear Kenyas LGBTI Community,

RE: Decisions Reached by Occupant Member Groups of the GALCK Center, the Transition Team and the Board

On Friday of last week (16^th November, 2012) four of the five Member Groups that share the GALCK office space in Nairobi met with the Transition Team to discuss the current situation at the GALCK Centre – in specific relation to the drop-in center and shared office space.

During that meeting, it was decided to extend the suspension of programmes at GALCK to include the Drop-in Centre service and the regular use of office space by the occupant Member Groups as of the end of November2012.

GALCK realizes the importance that an open Drop-In Center serves for the community and thus we are asking for patience and support as we undertake the process of safeguarding this and all other essential services that GALCK provides.

In effect, this means closing the doors of the centre to all except a small number of staff, the transition team and designated staff of member groups finalizing activities for the year.

This is by no means a move towards closing GALCK as an organization but is rather a move towards safeguarding a successful transition process.

Lastly, we will be communicating with you soon to invite you to Community consultation meetings in the course of the next few weeks.

In solidarity,

The Gay and Lesbian Coalition of Kenya